Baggage Fees? Or Better Passenger Choice? Tours.com's Travel-Intel Looks Into New Airline Ticketing Tactics

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - Dec 19, 2012) - Airline fees is a topic as popular as fiscal cliff concerns these days and airlines are clamoring to create new ways of funneling revenue into items and services that were once part and parcel of a purchased ticket. Bundling checked bags into a ticket, along with a cocktail or other perk is just one of the ways airlines are making fees look like benefits. Tours.com's Travel-Intel looks at some of the latest methods airlines are using to get passengers to pile extra cash onto the price of their ticket.

For those who will be among the record number of people traveling this holiday season Travel-Intel notes ways to bypass bogged down security lines by looking into federal "trusted traveler" programs that pre-qualify fliers who use various airlines and airports on domestic routes.

The latest issue of Travel-Intel also reports new trends in luxury travel as posited by the 2012 Virtuoso™ Luxe Report. Myanmar, Bhutan and Chile are the hottest go-to destinations by adventurous jet setters, and Napa/Sonoma claims the top spot this year for favorite U.S. getaway. Similarly, a survey by the U.S. Tour Operators Association shows that 2013 is expected to be a boom year for tours taken by U.S. travelers with adventure tours claiming the most popularity, followed by culinary tours, multigenerational travel, safaris and sports tours.

Finally, Travel-Intel looks at a range of rarefied resorts in Latin America -- from the Mexican border to the tip of Patagonia -- all offering amazing experiences in art, design, culinary set-ups, and serene surroundings as part of the Kurtz-Ahlers collection of exclusive resorts.

Travel-Intel, a division of Tours.com, monitors the travel industry with weekly newsletters on trends, news and updates about the travel industry sent to a permission-based database of more than 100,000 travel agents in the U.S. and Canada.

Although Travel-Intel is direct-mailed, current features and archives can be viewed at www.travel-intel.com.

"In this issue of Travel-Intel we are trying to parse some of the airline ticketing issues that have been plaguing the travel industry in recent years. If all these airline fees are here to stay, the airlines are clearly looking for ways to make them more palatable to the flying public," says Lark Ellen Gould, content director for Travel-Intel and Tours.com.

Travel-Intel brings in first-hand and well-researched stories from all over the globe, reporting from international conferences and destinations and talking to the brand managers at the helm of the industry.

Gould, a veteran travel journalist who has been covering the travel industry for more than 20 years, puts her incisive perspective into the weekly publication, with features and news updates on the 1st and 15^th of each month. These issues are complemented by the Travel-Intel "packages" publication during the between weeks that detail great deals to be found worldwide at hotels and resort locations, all sent to more than 100,000 travel agent subscribers in the U.S. and Canada, before posting on Tours.com.

About Tours.com: Tours.com since 1995 -- The Official Directory of Tours & Vacations Worldwide. Tours.com has a deep and searchable database of vacation and tour companies searchable by company name, destination and/or activity. A comprehensive one-stop Travel Resource section, plus the Find A Travel Agent Specialist search allows one to search for travel agents with in-depth knowledge in their chosen specialty.